Danger, danger, warning, alert!!! Possibly the most boring blawg post ever ahead. You have been warned.

Planning appeals. 

A phrase so dull, that tears of genuine ennui are gathering in the very ducts of mine own eyes as I type this. 

However, before I hyper yawn and unexpectedly swallow my own head, let me say the following. The Scottish government stuck out a run-of-the-mill, rather staid, in fact utterly dull, press release about the planning and appeals process this morning.

BBC Scotland, and STV ran it, nobody else can be bothered, cause it's like planning innit...

On closer inspection, I noticed it contained the following news.

"In the last six months, more than 80 per cent of written planning appeals were dealt with within 12 weeks. This compares to 27 per cent in the year 2008-09, and only six per cent in 2007/08."

So the process of appealing against planning decisions being dealt within three months has grown from from 6% to 80% in a two year period.

The exact figures are as follows:

Seven per cent of written planning appeals were dealt with within 12 weeks in 2004/5, 2005/6, 2006/7 and six per cent in 2007/08. 

So in the SNP's first year of Government they woefully failed to maintain the consistent 7% standard set by the previous Lib-Dem-Lab Scottish Executive... But somehow, in answer to the prayers and offerings of first children from developers around the country, they managed to improve the performance by 74%!


David Lonsdale, assistant director of CBI Scotland, described this phenomenal piece of good news for his members in the construction industry as, "an encouraging step." 

Obviously CBI Scotland don't want to get anyone's hopes up, by suggesting that a 76% improvement in a key economic factor is anything more than an 'encouraging step'. The possibility that this government might, maybe, perhaps be having a positive effect on the vast, dead hand of bureaucracy that blights our civil service, is something the CBI do not actively encourage. 


Planning, the rock and roll of local bureacracy. 


Told you it was boring. 


So, now that it's already half past November and people have started receiving Christmas cards....here's a bit of a treat for the ladies who've been complaining about the number of nubile girlies pictorially illustrated on this here blawg. 

An anonymous source has sent me a photograph of my dear chumrade Conan the Librarian, who shed over half his body weight after a trip to a local waxing salon, and now presents as a much more respectable Santa.